Hutto led us into the building confidently, stopping in a small antechamber with chairs and “refreshments,” if it wasn’t a sin to call ration bars refreshments.

At least there was water as well, and the tell-tale taste of chlorine reinforced my suspicions that Albuquerque had gotten their water grid working, at least partially.

Hutto had gone to speak to the guard at the door to the next room. He returned now. “We’ll have to wait a bit. Colonel Vasquez wants to talk to you himself, and he’s busy.”

I nodded, then poked Davi. “How are you doing?”

“How am I doing?!” Davi’s response was high-pitched. She waved her stump in my face. “How do you think I’m doing?!”

“You look like you could use a hand.”

Davi looked stunned.

Fuck, that just kind of slipped out. I’d been trying so hard to not do this shit, too.

Oh well.

No way out but through.

I patted her on the shoulder and adopted a serious expression. “I can see how you might find yourself disarmed by this terrible event and I want you to know I'm here for you if you need it. You're an awesome person, and I have no doubt you'll get a grip on things quickly, but on the other hand… well… there is no other hand.”

“Jesus Christ, Vince,” Byron muttered.

Davi kept staring at me. I could feel her shoulder shaking under my fingers, but I couldn’t parse her expression.

“Too soon?” I asked.

She made a strange sound. Was she… crying?

Her good fist punched my shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, and I heard her snort. “You are the worst, Vincenzo Moretti. I’m telling Meghan on you!”

She was crying, but she was laughing too. I cringed, offering her an apologetic smile. “She knew I was an idiot when she married me.”

“I’ll report him to HR if you want,” Kurt offered.

That got a barking laugh from Davi, and she threw herself down in a chair, pulling her backpack onto her lap with difficulty. “God. Why did I have to lose my right hand? I feel like it would have been just fine if I’d lost my left one.”

“Maybe it’ll come back?” I offered. “You have regeneration.”

“Maybe. It isn’t a common choice, so we don’t have any data on-” Davi stopped, then looked up at Hutto. “Will the regeneration biological augment give back limbs?”

Hutto looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure, but someone ought to know. I’m not part of the analysis team.”

“You have a team doing ability analysis?” Byron asked, clearly delighted. Then he realized that his excitement was kind of inappropriate. He shot Davi a guilty look.

“I have the most sensitive and caring friends,” Davi muttered. There wasn’t much bite in her words. The reminder about her regeneration ability seemed to have given her hope. She scrubbed her face and looked at Hutto. “Do you know what the colonel wants from us?”

“More details on the areas you’ve traveled through, exactly what you did to get a vehicle running, and your precise plan and needs for this… airship… you plan on making.”

Byron cursed and began rummaging through his backpack. “Damnit, where did those calculations go? I know I packed them…”

Davi ignored this. “Okay. That makes sense. And you being here makes sense, you were watching for Kurt and Byron and you’re like, our liaison or something. But, uh, why is she tagging along?”

The axe-toting woman who’d accompanied us from the northern gate raised her eyebrows. Davi hurried to amend her question. “Sorry! Not trying to be rude. You’re clearly a boss, and you saved our butts in the monster herd. You just don’t seem like military.”

This made the warrior laugh. “Fair enough. I’m not, or at least I wasn’t until recently. I’m Heather Giles. I represent the Barony of al-Barran. Well, and some others, I suppose. Our official name is the Albuquerque Alternative Training Auxiliaries.”

“That’s a bit of a mouthful,” Davi said.

It didn’t make a nice acronym, either, I couldn’t help but notice.

Heather grinned. “That’s why most people either call us the Medieval Militia or the Knights. Bugs the hell out of Jonathan. Took him five years in the SCA to get recognized as a knight, and now people are calling all of us that.”

“So you’re SCA? Society for Creative Anachronism?” I asked. “That explains the barony bit.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

She grinned. “Yeah. Though… if I’m being honest, SCA members only make up about half of our group these days. Kirtland kind of gathered up everyone they could who had useful skills, so we’ve got fencing clubs, archery teams, martial artists, SCA, historical re-enactors, blacksmiths, engineers, farmers, crafty types. Lot of call for people who can make soap these days.” Heather wrinkled her nose, and I nodded. We all stank. Washcloths weren’t really a replacement for showers, and Cleanse took too much energy to use frivolously.

“You said you were training auxiliaries,” Davi said. “I take it you’re going out and sharing your expertise with people who want to learn?”

“That’s the idea, yeah. When we’re not needed for that, we’re also the start of Albuquerque’s new manufacturing base. Armor, weapons, tools… We’re the ones who got the water treatment plant more or less working again, and we’ve got a team looking into the possibility of restoring the electrical grid… although I’m not sure that’s going to happen. Electricity generation is one thing, but getting it safely to where it needs to be when there’s not a single wire left intact?” She frowned.

Something about the way she spoke tipped me off. “You’re an engineer, too.”

She smiled. “Guilty as charged. That’s why I’m here. I wasn’t in a position of authority in the Barony before the apocalypse, but I should be able to assess if your plan is feasible. I also know the people in the Militia well enough to know who, if anyone, should be tapped to help.”

There was a sound of flapping paper as Byron shook a shirt, letting a spiral-bound notebook work its way free and clatter to the floor. “There it is!” Byron said. His backpack had been almost totally emptied, spread out on the tile floor around him. “I’d be happy to start filling you in on our plans while we’re waiting.”

“Sounds good,” she said. “I’d be delighted to start looking through your designs while you tidy up.”

“Oh… uh… right. Right.”

We settled in for what we all expected would be a long wait. The leaders here seemed to be dealing with an endless stream of crises. Titans were a new problem, and there were plenty of related emergencies to address: evacuations needed to be organized, armed response teams needed to be sent, and firebreaks needed to be created. People were causing plenty of unnecessary trouble as well, however. A number brought complaints of broken promises and deceitful neighbors, but they were told their issues were classed as “priority five” and that only issues of priority three and above were being addressed today. Other people were directed to less senior teams of decision-makers, like those who came with notices about roads or public buildings damaged by accidental ability use. Several were still seen, people who brought news of other people endangering others, mostly.

Honestly, after ten minutes of observation, I’d optimistically flagged us as maybe getting seen by the end of the following day. I didn’t mind too much. We hadn’t had much real downtime since this had started, and if we could get, well, “investment” in our idea, it would more than make up for any lost time. Heather seemed interested in our plans and ideas, asking intelligent questions and peering closely at our sketches and rough calculations.

“Right, so, we’re thinking we’ll want to join three standard balloon envelopes together, for a finished envelope that’s about 50 feet across, 150 feet long, and 80 feet tall. Ballpark numbers, obviously,” Byron said.

“You’re going to get a lot of extra stress on a larger envelope, especially if it has an oblong shape. How do you plan to address it?”

“We’re hoping to create a semi-rigid framework. Aluminum will probably be our best bet, perhaps with titanium for some of the most critical parts. We’ll have to experiment to figure out exactly how thick the bars would need to be and how many of them we’d need, but we’re estimating between 300 and 1,000 pounds for the framework.”

“Not very precise. I assume your calculations were for hollow tubes?”

“Yeah, but none of us could remember the precise density of aeronautical-grade alloys of either metal, so my calculations are based on measurements of commercially-available alloys. The tools I used to do those measurements were, uh, also not aircraft grade.” Byron gestured to his overstuffed backpack.

“Ha! Fair enough! And then, for propulsion… you were thinking muscle power? You’re going to have to fill me in on this.”

The project was complicated enough that a discussion let the hours pass quickly until the colonel finally had a lull in petitions and called us in. He nodded to us seriously as we entered. “Thank you for waiting.”

Kurt stepped smoothly into his role as spokesperson. “Thank you for inviting us. It’s clear that you have a lot of calls on your time.”

“The Titans made today particularly troublesome.” The colonel had a great poker face. Only the slightest thinning of his lips gave away his frustration. “But I needed to make time for you. Travelers are rare, and you're the first to make it to town from more than fifty miles away. If my aide with the Insight ability hadn’t confirmed, I’d have never believed that you started in Denver.”

John spoke up. “Gettin’ a truck running again really helped with that, sir, especially in the earlier weeks. It wasn’t too hard. What y’need to do is-”

The colonel raised a hand to cut him off. “After we heard it was possible, we got a team of our own working on getting vehicles running again, and I know that they have succeeded. I want you to consult with them to compare notes and optimize processes, but I don’t need the details. I am mostly interested in your firsthand account of the area to the north.”

My friends and I exchanged glances.

Kurt cleared his throat. “Sir. We were under the impression that you were going to look over our plans for an airship and possibly offer support in its construction.”

The colonel waved a hand. “Ms. Giles, you’ve had ample opportunity to speak with them. How feasible is their plan?”

The chainmail-clad woman shifted her weight. “Well, there are definitely some areas of uncertainty, uh, sir, but in the worst-case scenario we should still be able to use abilities to compensate for any issues. I’d say it’s feasible.”

“More than a 50% chance of getting us back in contact with the eastern half of the country?”

“I’d say so, sir.”

“Alright, then.” The colonel brought his hands together. “I trust Ms. Giles’ judgement, and the fact that you five have made it this far is a strong resume for your own capability and determination. Here is the deal I’m offering. Reports say you have one Shop blueprint pattern among you. I want that placed and secured in southwestern Albuquerque, where we have a serious gap in food availability. I want you to share all the information you’ve gathered in your travels openly and honestly. I want the Ruler in your number to take and keep two dozen of my soldiers as his subjects, and two of you to become subjects of rulers among my forces. We believe we will be able to use the ruler-subject messaging system to keep in touch over extended distances. In exchange for these considerations, I am willing to assign ten metal-shaping experts and two textile specialists to your cause, and give you rights to three balloon envelopes and whatever metal and machinery you need to salvage from the airport. Do you accept?”

Kurt gave me a concerned glance, but he needn’t have worried. Yes, I’d kept the Shop to place near my family, but my encounter with Rina had already made me feel guilty about that. What the colonel was offering was a fast-track home. I knew how to find more Shops. I was fast and strong. I could get food if my family needed it, as long as I was close enough to do so. I nodded to Kurt.

“We do,” Kurt said.

The colonel’s stiff face broke into a smile. “Excellent. Now, tell me everything. Where in Denver were you when the monsters appeared?”